


The Princess and the Snake

by LysSerris



Series: One-Shot [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Bellamione Cult Discord Game, Bellamione Cult Ilvermorny Cup, Discord: Bellamione Cult, F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 05:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19968568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LysSerris/pseuds/LysSerris
Summary: It was a snake.A talking snake.Talking to her!





	The Princess and the Snake

**Author's Note:**

> Minimally edited, lots of grammar mistakes. I'll try to fix later.

_Air._

_She desperately needed air._

Sure footed steps carried Hermione forward at a pace that left her gasping as she descended deeper and deeper into the woods surrounding her home. She moved and twisted as she ran, ducking away from branches and twisting off from bushes, tearing herself a path through the thick undergrowth.

_‘I can’t fucking believe them!’_

Her head and heart were both in agreement with that though. The speed that had carried her off so swiftly began to take a toll on her less than athletically inclined body, her movement beginning to slow into an unsteady walk. Prim hands and polished nails brushed away the beginnings of tears while her eyes grew bleary as she fought to maintain her composure.

_‘How dare they… How could they even think that!!’_

\---

**Before**

_“Hermione, luv? Could you come down now please?”_

_The stern tone of her mother’s voice carried up the stairwell leading towards her bedroom, catching along the corners and barely alerting her to the summons._

_She was of half a mind to disregard the request completely and the argument from earlier was doing her no favors._

_But it_ **_was_ ** _her mother, and if she didn’t listen now then she would never hear the end of it._

_They had always been like that, she supposed, from the moment she’d been old enough to choose they had stolen those choices or made them on their own. Browbeaten if she made any without them._

_She hated it. Yet suffered all the same._

\---

**Then**

Her flight eventually pulled her towards a portion of the woods that she’d never once visited before. All around her were tall oaks and pines that grew on each other’s roots until it seemed they were one and the same, more one than two. All around her from every angle came the sound of a forest in bloom, the chirp of birds, whining of crickets or cicadas, the slow and mournful calls of deer and elk hidden deeply beneath the woods.

It was beautiful and breathtaking unlike anything she’d ever experienced, and yet it was still not enough. She stopped her forward wandering and picked a tree at random to sit down against, wrapping her arms around her legs as she held them up against her chest. Despite the beauty of the space she was consumed with thoughts of returning home. An angry Mother. A pissed off Father. Probably a lecture from both of them that would last multiple lifetimes.

Nothing good.

The wind moved and the sun kept turning as she waited to settle herself and prepare to return. She would have liked to take longer but eventually it became clear that the weather would soon turn and she was nowhere close to being ready to stand out in the rain. She got up, standing sorely from her small position on the ground, just as large fat drops of water that had swollen after the summer drought began to fall. The pitter-patter against the leaves above her head drove her forward from her hiding space. She dearly wished to miss the oncoming downpour and with that in mind began to retrace her steps, following a downed tree here, a bush of nettles there.

It quickly became apparent that it wasn’t enough. Eventually the rain began to pick up until her visibility died out and she could barely see a meter in front of herself. Her clothing was soaked through almost immediately beneath the chilly blanket of water, leaving her dripping and sopping as she struggled to make her way forward.

\---

She was lost.

Well and truly, one hundred and ten percent, no going back from this, **_Lost._ **

_‘Oh no.’_

She knew, logically, that these woods couldn’t continue on forever. She would find a road if she walked in a straight line for long enough. But even with rain finally disappearing she couldn’t get her bearings beneath the heavy canopy above her, and with the oncoming of night she was doomed to further isolate herself.

With that knowledge in mind she set about looking for a shelter, any shelter, of any kind at all.

After seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours, Lady Luck seemed to finally hand her a spot of luck. Out of the ethereal twilight and still dripping trees rose the first sight in hours that could bring a smile to her face. Shelter.

More accurately it was a shack, but as her mind screamed out in joy she could only focus on finding someone who could hopefully help her find her way back home. Through low-lying ferns and the tug of long branches she eventually emerged into a roughly circular clearing that held at its center a small wooden shack. It was no larger than a shed, square and squat with a slanting roof, and had a tin metal pipe extending out from the top to reveal it at least had a fireplace. She dearly needed a fireplace. 

She walked around the side of the small abode and was struck by how it seemed to have arisen from the forest floor. It was brown untreated lumber with boards haphazardly stacked on top of one another, all together looking older than she even was.At the far side from where she entered she found a large plank door underneath the slightest of overhangs, a single window shuttered and closed beside it.

“Hello?” She barged forward and banged against the door with her fist, “Is anyone there? Can you help me please?”

_Knock Knock Knock_

Each time she hit the door with her fist she repeated her request, each time receiving no answer.

When it seemed like all hope was lost her final knock against the wood caused the door to sudder inwards and open up before her. She stood there with her fist raised and a blank expression on her face until her senses finally came back to her. She walked forward with no small amount of trepidation while her eyes darted all about in the remaining dim light from the fading sun outside.

There was no one.

Set against the far wall was a fireplace, small and squat and built from what looked to be cast iron. Her heart leapt into her throat at that small mercy and without any sense of hesitation she moved forward to where it sat. She kneeled by the cold fireplace and began to root around its edges as she sought anything with which to start a fire. Her body had begun to shake and shiver while she kneeled down, and while it wouldn’t get too cold out tonight she knew she was still at risk of hypothermia. 

“Aha,” she exclaimed, as her fingers alighted upon a small box of matches stuck behind a corner of the fireplace. Beside the little item was a box of ratty newspapers and dried rags, perfect kindling for proper fire. With that located she turned towards finding wood for a stable fire, standing up and stepping backwards as her eyes scanned the room.

“Ow!”

“AH!” Hermione’s heart nearly leaped out from her chest at the same time that she screamed, her body turning about in terror. “Who’s there,” she called into the slowly gathering darkness, “Show yourself!”

The last dregs of light vanished behind the cracks in the window until the world around her was shoved into an inky darkness. 

“...Hello?” Her voice was far more timid now as she wondered if her extended loneliness was causing her to imagine things, her words and sounds where none existed. Just as she was ready to continue her search for wood, her eyes squinted tightly to pierce the oppressive darkness, a sound at her feet stopped her cold. Something small, something low, a dry rasp of wood against something unknown.

“...Hello?” 

“Hello.”

Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin at that, her hands fumbling the matches while she fell on startled feet, head slamming backwards into the floor.

\---

_“Come on ‘Mione,” the little red pig seated at her feet began, “Let’s all just get alone, ya?”_

_She could feel herself sinking down, falling into ground, as the floor rose up to meet her face._

_“It’ll be alright ‘Mione, you just plant yourself like a good one, ya? Can’t have me wife out on her own like that!”_

_She glared across at the tiny pig, now closer and larger the more she sank into the ground, “I don’t want you! You’re disgusting, I will_ **_not_ ** _be bound to someone like you!”_

 _She tried to pull her arms free and gasped out dirt and detritus as the world threatened to swallow her whole. Body struggling, breath gasping, the little -_ **_large_ ** _\- pig had begun to shovel food into its angry red maw._

_And then her teeth fell out._

\---

“Ah!” She awoke with a start and sat up from the floor in a single fluid motion, her heart racing her stomach to be the first up out her throat. She glanced from side to side before putting a head to the back of her head, fingers probing gently where a large knot had begun to form.

“Ow…”

The rain had started again at some point while she was knocked out, a heavy drumming of water against the roof above her head. There was no sign of whoever had spoken to her earlier, that voice that had seemed to float up at her from beneath the darkness, but there _was_ something she hadn’t seen before. A stack of ten logs were placed securely into a corner of the room and made visible only under the shifting and stuttering glow of the moon through the cracks in the window.

She stepped forward heedless of whether anyone was in the room with her or not, her body and mind more focused on getting warm and getting dry. She grabbed a stack of five logs and held them closely to her chest before she turned around and made her way back towards the small fireplace. When she returned to it she dropped the wood and grabbed up bits of paper and rag to stuff and prep the fire. 

Her hand groped through the darkness for a match and with unnerving accuracy she picked one on the first try. She struck it against the metal of the wood stove before setting light to the kindling inside. It lit at once, a small flame in the darkness, and she nurtured it with her breath until it fully caught and spat embers up and down the dry wooden log.

“Took you long enough.”

Hermione whirled around at once, ready to stand her ground and face whoever was messing with her. “Show yourself! I’m not afraid of you!”

A raspy sound met her ears as something began to move closer to her through the darkness, hiding and moving between the shadow of a small cot against the wall and her own flickering darkness projected forwards by the flame at her back. It was a snake. Long and black with a body nearly as thick as her forearm, the snake continued onward and closer to her, its long body revealed as the seconds ticked on.

“W-what? Show yourself! I’m not afraid of you, or your Pet!” Her words were truth. All nature had fascinated her since she’d been a child and years spent outdoors on her own had taught her snakes were nothing to fear so long as she didn’t bother them.

“Ah,” the voice sighed, “Down here. And _Pet_? Really?”

Hermione’s eyes darted down at the sudden voice, started and confused. Disbelief began to bang a gong against the back of her skull the longer she stared. 

_‘Ventriloquism, yes, that’s it.’_

But before she could drop down to her knees and peer underneath the cot at the far end of the room the snake reached her body and began to climb up her leg.

“Well this is just peachy. I’m stuck here in this form and in need of rescue, and all I get is you, a disbelieving little bint. Muddy, tell me this, how did you find me?”

Hermione’s throat was stuck closed. Open. Gasping. Hyperventilating. Eyes wide as saucers and burning from the extended blink.

_‘The snake is talking!’_

“...Um,” she began, her voice suddenly dry and scratchy, “Excuse me?”

Incredulity was her only response. Logic wasn’t working. Ventriloquism wasn’t the answer.

It was a snake.

A _talking_ snake.

_Talking to her!_

“Oh Apep’s mercy, please tell me you’re not hard of hearing,” the snake rasped out in a uniquely feminine tone while she wound herself up Hermione’s frozen body to settle upon her shoulders. A warm black tongue flickered out against her cheek again and again as the snake inspected Hermione.

“No,” her manners finally caught up with her broken thoughts, “I can hear you perfectly fine. I’m just… Very, very confused.”

“What’s to be confused about, Muddy?”

“Well… First there’s the fact that you’re a snake. A _talking_ snake, and you’re… You’re talking to me.” Her words were hushed and quiet as the snake poked in and out of the drapery of her hair, “And why are you calling me Muddy?”

“Because you are,” Hermione looked down at herself and confirmed that yes, she was definitely covered in mud. “And I’m not a snake. I’m a witch.”

“No.”

“No?” The snake hissed her statement back, displeasure evident in her tone.

“No, absolutely not. I imagined a voice, fell and cracked my skull, I’m probably still knocked out is all. I’m definitely not talking to a snake,” Hermione backed herself up into an open chair against the wall, “I’m certainly not talking to a snake who’s really a witch.”

She could feel her heartbeat frantically seeking to escape into orbit while the weight of the rather large snake shifted down onto her arm.

_‘This is not happening.’_

“Well,” the snake wound forward until she was eye to eye, “I _am_ a talking snake. I _am_ a witch. And you must be as well, or at least you have the potential, if you’re able to hear me. Normal humans would just see a snake and her a hiss.”

“I’m sorry but,” Hermione cradled her head in her hands, “No, no, I’m definitely not a witch, I’m just going crazy. Have gone crazy?” Hermione was a firm believer in the power of truth, the validity of facts, science and its immutable rules that governed her universe. A talking snake-witch did not fit into that. At all.

“Muddy, look at me,” the snake waited patiently while swaying in front of her face until Hermione was staring back at her, “You’re likely a witch. I am as well. Or was. The semantics are unimportant here because I _am_ here and I _am_ real.”

“Okay,” Hermione dragged in breath, unsure and unsteady but needing to grasp onto something, “Fine. So say I believe you’re not just a very vivid hallucination. Why are you a snake?”

“Questions after comfort. Let me down, get out of those horrid clothes, and get into the cot. It’s late and I’d prefer not to hang around a soaking body.”

Hermione did as the snake had asked, tired and hurting and too wet to argue. She was beyond petty questions of reality and now firmly in the grip of fantasy. Disagreement was beyond her.

She stripped away her soggy clothing and put on warm black robes that had been hidden in a cupboard that the snake directed her towards. It hadn’t taken her much thought to immediately throw herself into the soft cloth, warm and dry at last.

With that part settled she threw two more logs into the small fireplace where the snake was currently basking. It only peered at her once before she wandered off to the side to climb up into the surprisingly comfortable cot, warm woolen covers laying heavy atop her. The snake,which heretofore had respected her privacy by turning away, slowly moved out across the floor to join her on the cot and curl into a tight ball in her lap.

“Much as I love calling you pithy names, what are you really known as Muddy?”

“Hermione,” she answered evenly, “And you?”

“Bellatrix,” the snake hissed, out in an overly prideful tone.

“So, Bellatrix… How did you come to be a snake?”

“You first, Pet.”

Hermione sputtered and stalled at that.

 _"Pet_? And why me first?”

“Because your name is a mouthful for me to say like this. And because you’re in _my_ home, wearing _my_ robes, laying in _my_ bed.”

Despite the grievances Hermione had with that moniker she acquiesced to the sound reasoning and slowly began her tale.

\---

**Before**

_Hermione slowly left the hallway and entered the lower portion of their home, already well aware of where this was headed. Her Father was standing tall at the entrance to the sitting room with his lips pursed and eyes dark._

_“Young lady, your mother called down for you minutes ago.” His stern voice shook through her smaller form as she placed her eyes upon the ground, shrinking into herself._

_Her Father could be a very loving person and had been for many years actually, but as money had begun to tighten and the stresses grew, he’d become harder and harder on her. Usually he left her Mother to deal with her, except in cases of discipline, leaving her alone to bear the brunt of her Mother’s choices._

_“I’m sorry Father.”_

_“As you should be.” The Weasley’s have been waiting on you. Go,” he pointed his thumb over his shoulder, “Now.”_

_Gait demure and head hanging low, Hermione walked forward while thinking of the lecture she would receive later. Her Father did_ ** _not_** _tolerate tardiness. She rounded the doorway to the room and before she could even get a word out in greeting an overly touchy woman with red hair and a fiercely greedy smile had stepped forward to wrap her into a crushing, and unwanted, hug. The arms around her torso were slowly clenching down while the woman rocked her back and forth, her voice echoing off of Hermione’s ears until she couldn’t even hear what was being said._

_When she was finally released her Mother grabbed her by the elbow and discretely dragged her over to the blue settee sitting in the middle of the room. In front of her was a small coffee table laden with food and drink, and across from that was the opposite settee, upon which sat the Red Woman. At her side, shoveling food and drink into his face in a pace that made Hermione want to vomit, was The Boy. Her Doom._

_Hermione fell forward into her thoughts while her mother began a conversation with the Red Woman, the Pig at her side still stuffing his face and looking around for more._

_She hated this._

_Not only had she made it pointedly clear to her family that she did_ **_not_ ** _find men attractive, (something she’d needed to re-clarify with her Mother on numerous occasions), she_ **_hated_ ** _the thought of becoming some mincemeat housewife for someone to Lord themselves over. To order her around. Her place wasn’t at home, it was out. Her place wasn’t to cook or rear devil spawn, she was supposed to be exploring! Learning!_

_Bettering herself so that she could better the world._

_Her breath eventually caught in her throat while her heart began hammering away, vision narrowing down to a pin-point. From there she’d stood up on unsteady feet to hurry out and away, pushing past her Father’s reaching grasp in her flight out onto the lawn._

\---

**Then**

“Arranged marriages are the worst,” Bellatrix drawled out in a hiss from her new perch, draped around Hermione’s shoulders.

She nodded her head, fully in agreement with the snake-witch.

Her mind felt surprisingly light after getting it all out to Bellatrix. Where her heart had once stuttered and frozen it now had calmed and evened out. 

“You have any experience with them?” Her question was soft, quiet, drifting closer towards sleep with the deepening of the night.

“Oh yes, do I ever.”

\---

**Before**

_Bellatrix was incensed, furious even. Her hands were trembling with rage and the wand clutched tightly in her fingers was spitting hot sparks against the hardwood floor of her cottage. In her free hand she clutched the instrument of her rage. A letter, delivered discreetly by her Father’s owl, had arrived only minutes ago._

_She’d opened the parchment up in expectation of finding another plea from Narcissa for potions supplies and instead been met something else. Her Father’s distasteful calligraphy. And a notice that she was to be wed._

_Tomorrow._

_She strode out from the cottage when her mind no longer brought up thoughts of ruin and mayhem, grasping out for her broom and mounting with a huff. She took off so quickly that her pointed hat was knocked away by the sudden wind, black curls left to billow behind her as she sped onward. Soon enough she found herself closing in on the ancestral seat of her family, a large home carved straight into a cliff face, the place where she’d grown up._

_It was an oppressive and imposing sight to visitors but to her it was forever a statement to her father’s arrogance and inhumanity. His broken desire for boys leading him only to daughters. She hated the man, hated what he stood for. She also thought that her rather tactless exit on Samhain three years ago had made that very clear. That she’d made it clear she wasn’t to be disturbed, interfered with, that she was to be left alone._

_But_ **_no_ ** _._

_Her Father still couldn’t refrain himself from barging into her life and arranging a damned blood marriage, to Rodolphus of all people, and he’d already paid the boon! She was well and truly fucked._

_Unless..._

\---

**Then**

“So what did you end up doing?”

“A number of imaginative things, all not to be spoken of in polite conversation.”

“Do you regret it?” Hermione peered down at the serpent.

In response Bellatrix tightened the hold she had around Hermione’s neck, long tongue tickling against the nape of her neck. “I regret how I did it, but not that I got out from underneath his thumb. I was, and still remain, someone not to be trifled with. Anyone who thinks they can control me is dead wrong and I’d be quite happy to show them how much I mean that statement.”

“More of a threat isn’t it?”

Bellatrix stared unblinkingly back up at Hermione.

“I guess.”

“Hmm…,” Hermione sighed, “So is that why you’re a snake?”

“No,” Bellatrix responded, voice sweet against Hermione’s ear.

\---

**Before**

_“Bellatrix, dammit, get back here!”_

_“No Dromeda, I’m doing this for your own sake!”_

_Feet slid across polished marble tiles as Bellatrix practically flew off down the hallway. Her wand was clutched in her hand a madman's grin was plastered to her face, eyes glinting maniacally in the light thrown off by the sconces. She truly looked like the reputation she had earned, the moniker of ‘Mad Witch.’_

_“Bellatrix stop it this instant, I’m warning you!”_

_“Dromeda I’m doing this whether you like it or not,” she huffed out through uneven breaths as her body pushed the limits of her exertion, “Ted is_ **_not_ ** _enough for you and I’ll prove it even if I have to turn him inside out!”_

_Her sister gave no further warning, gave her no time to think or dodge or move. One minute her body was hurtling onward and the next, well…_

_The spell that smashed into the base of her spine was hot enough to light up every single one of her vertebra from tip to top, a feverish heat spiking throughout her muscles in a wave that wouldn’t end. Her body had been flung forward by the momentum of the spell, causing her to throw up her arms in an effort to protect herself when she fell._

_Her hands never landed though._

_One minute she was a woman, twenty-seven years of age and well versed in all the Darkest Arts. The next minute she was a snake, as dark as her name._

\---

**Then**

“Your _sister_ did this to you? Hermione practically squawked as she questioned the serpent, incredulity evident in her tone.

“Yes, she thought it a fitting punishment. I tried to interfere with her love life, so she interfered with mine.”

Hermione, who up until this point had been running a lone finger down the length of satiny scales that covered Bellatrix’s head, stilled her movements and stared down at the slitted eyes before her. “What do you mean?”

“She cursed me to this form until I find my one true love. Like I said, I messed with her love life, so she messed with mine.”

Hermione was horrified into shock. She might not have had any siblings but she couldn’t imagine any situation where she’d want to react so callously towards someone. Locking them away in a body not their own, leaving them stranded with no hope of normalcy. It was bloody crazy.

“Why did she do that, instead of like, I don’t know,” her finger returned to tracing the line of scales, “She could have just stunned you or something else. Why such an extreme curse?”

“Well I certainly hadn’t made the choice any easier for her. Up until that point I’d chased away every suitor she’d ever had. Ted was just the last in a long line of mistakes.”

“And did you ever tell her why you were doing all that?”

“Of course I did, each and every time,” Bellatrix shifted as she spoke until she was curled into a ball on Hermione’s lap, her head tucked down beneath the looping coils of her body. “I just wanted to keep her safe…”

Hermione couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness and foreign regret for this wayward witch, hallucination or not.

“So what do you need to do to break it, besides find this person?”

“I just need a kiss. Or maybe to sleep on their pillow? I don’t know, she wasn’t very clear with me when she booted me off into the forest. It doesn’t matter though, the hardest part is that the person has to be my soulmate. _One true love_ and all. And I,” she poked her head above her coils and yawned, her jaws shifting side to side, “I have literally no idea how to determine who that person is.”

“Okay… But what about me being a witch?”

Bellatrix shifted herself forward until Hermione was laying beneath her with her back against the bed and head caressed by the pillow beneath her. When they had both settled in she moved her mouth near Hermione’s ear and began to whisper, “You’ve got to be a witch, mostly because anyone cursed can only be understood by a witch. It’s part of our curses, buried deep within. A human who has been cursed will never be able to return home, no one will understand them. Now, sleep. I’m tired enough as it is, I need my beauty sleep.”

Hermione obeyed the suddenly sleeping reptile, her mind lulled by soft covers and the lovely warmth thrown off by the fire across the room. Beside her head Bellatrix remained still and silent as she could be.

A thought struck Hermione then, right before she drifted off, and before it could flee her she acted. She turned slightly to press soft lips against the snout of the black reptile, slowly drifting off to sleep when she turned back.

\---

**Later**

Waking up was a chore that was exacerbated by the strong warmth cocooning Hermione’s lethargic body. Outside of the shack she could hear the chirping of songbirds and gentle harmonious sounds of the waking world. A light shone against her eyes from the window across the room, tugging gently at her until she’d fled wonderful dreams and plentiful rest. The soft warmth at her back shifted as Hermione awoke, a weight pressing softly against her spine as a warm arm tightened around her stomach.

_‘Wait…’_

Her mind jumped on the inconsistency until her heart began beating fast enough to supply blood for her to think. With a dash as quick as lightning she was scooting off the bed and out of the grip around her body, falling to the floor and tripping to her knees in her haste. When she had sure footing beneath her body she stood and turned behind herself. She stared at the covers she’d only just recently vacated and gasped loud enough to wake the occupant within.

There, in the bed she’d slept in, was a woman of pale complexion and raven hair, her face smashed down into a pillow as she avoided the oncoming light. A pale arm was draped across the space Hermione had just left, fingers clenching tightly to the soft blanket.

“...Bellatrix?” Hermione’s voice was small and tiny in the morning stillness, hidden and surprised but amazed all the same. The woman remained unmoving and only mumbled something into the pillow that Hermione couldn’t catch.

“Bellatrix!”

“...What…” Her voice was soft and raspy but still familiar enough for Hermione to know it was the snake she’d spoken with last night.

“Bellatrix!!”

“What!?” The woman pulled back from the bed to throw herself up against the wooden wall at her back. Propped up. On her _arms._ A look crossed her face and Hermione was too entranced by her naked beauty to catalogue it properly, and then she stared down at her own nude form while her mouth gaped open like a fish.

Hermione moved closer with her hand and fingers outstretched until she made contact with the woman. Black eyes met her own, warm and soft and all the things that made her stomach clench and core pool with warmth.

“You’re not a hallucination…”

**Author's Note:**

> Might continue this at some point.
> 
> Like Bellamione? https://discord.gg/pcfMU4F come on in and join the server!


End file.
